


Cities made of ashes

by Skoll



Category: 1984 - George Orwell, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, Dystopia, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1984/Harry Potter crossover.  Preslash SS/HP. - Harry works each day under Tom Riddle's gaze and returns home to more of the same, and, ever, the telescreens look on.  TOM RIDDLE IS WATCHING YOU.  Thank you for reminding me, Harry would like to say, his voice biting, his face twisted into a sneer.  He never does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There are thirty-two steps leading up to Harry's apartment, and the wall parallel to every sixth step is marked with the same poster.

Harry knows this poster very well. It is everywhere, because it is essential to the Party and the Party, as far back as Harry can remember it, is everywhere. Harry would know the poster in his sleep, as any faithful Party member is expected to. The picture emblazoned across the poster's surface shows a solemn, white-skinned man, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, though Harry has never been much good at guessing ages. The man has dark, slightly wavy hair and piercing eyes that are darker still. Harry has always thought that the man looks a little disapproving as he stares out at the world. Underneath the youthful, handsome face there is always a caption in bold letters: TOM RIDDLE IS WATCHING YOU.

Each day Harry walks home from work and sees this poster everywhere, of course. The walls of buildings hold the poster, decrepit fences hold the poster. Tom Riddle's dark, watchful eyes stare out wherever Harry goes. This is alright, as things go; it is expected. The great indignity is in returning to his apartment from long hours of work and walking up each of those thirty two stairs every day. The apartment building, called Oceania Mansion, is unstable and dusty and all gone to shambles, but Harry thinks it might have been a home if not for all those posters. To go to work with Tom Riddle's eyes upon him would be alright if Harry could ever have a moment's reprieve.

There is no such rest to be found. Harry works each day under Tom Riddle's gaze and returns home to more of the same, and, ever, the telescreens look on. TOM RIDDLE IS WATCHING YOU.

Thank you for reminding me, Harry would like to say, his voice biting, his face twisted into a sneer.

He never does.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry is twenty-three, at a best guess.

This might seem insignificant. To Harry, it never has been. Being twenty-three, or near enough to that age, at this present moment, makes Harry of the generation that never grew up living for an award from the Spies, or any other similar group. Harry sees those who are currently children, or have been recently, and is endlessly glad of this. Harry, at least, has never gone about singing the praises of Tom Riddle, or sold out a neighbor on the vagaries of suspicion for a moment's praise. He is able, if he truly tries, to recall a mother with the same vivid green eyes as his smiling down at him, and a father with his hair lifting him into the air with a smile. Somewhere, in the back of Harry's mind, he is certain they both died bravely, and for the purpose of sparing his life. He has, of course, checked the Party records—Lily and James Potter, drunken and disorderly, died in collision with Inner Party automobile, survived by infant son. Perhaps, then, he imagined the martyrdom associated with their deaths. This, however, is insignificant. Harry has always known that, once, he was loved unconditionally. It is enough, most days.

…

There is another couple of about Harry's age who live on the same floor.

He has, of course, met them both before. On occasion, they have even spoken for a time; they have a sink which is in the habit of leaking, and Harry is skilled with his hands.

The wife is Comrade Weasley. As her husband is also Comrade Weasley, she has instructed Harry to call her Comrade Hermione instead. Harry always remembers Hermione first by her hair, which is bushy and quite brown, and then by her teeth, which, though a little overlarge, are white and quite even. There is something in Hermione's eyes that tells Harry that she would love to read if such a thing was permissible. She works at the Ministry of Truth, Fiction Section; Harry, who works in Records, has seen her from time to time.

The husband, Comrade Weasley, has never given Harry his first name. This is quite alright with Harry, who has always felt he might be terrible with names if asked to recall them on a daily basis. Weasley, who Harry can identify by sight from meters away just by the bright red color of his hair, works in the Ministry of Plenty. Weasley's eyes lack the shine of intelligence his wife's hold, but hold a sort of spark that Harry finds himself empathizing with, though he can not quite put a name to it.

Harry has long been of the privately held opinion that the Party makes matches based on a lack of attraction rather than the presence of it. Certainly, two such opposites as Hermione and Weasley might never again be found. The two never show any real attraction for each other in public. Still, just once or twice, Harry is sure he has seen a light in their eyes when they look at each other, and he should like to call it love.

Thoughtcrime—the crime which encompasses all else. Crimes of the mind which, though they might never be acted upon, still bring the entirety of the guilt of actually committing the crime with them. One stray thought, and one watchful eye in the wrong place, and then there is no more to be said. They come in the night when you least expect them, and then you find yourself in the Ministry of Love with a gun to the back of your neck, or so Harry has gleaned over the years from a myriad of sources, none of whom he can easily recall. If love is not considered thoughtcrime, Harry does not know what is.

In another world, Harry thinks he and Weasley and Hermione might have been the best of friends. They are certainly brave enough. And maybe they, who dare defy the Party by going against unspoken law and falling in love, would be able to understand Harry. Surely they would not condemn Harry for the dreams which, though far beyond the realm of his control, will one day have him vaporized, undone, unmade. Perhaps in that world, they would be willing to die for Harry's friendship, though they—and Harry—are not so willing here.

Sitting alone in his apartment, Harry raises a glass of Victory Gin and toasts alone.

…

Newspeak Dictionary, Tenth Edition, unperson: One who does not currently exist, and, more, has never existed. Harry, who is still working with the Ninth addition in the Minitrue, does not know if this definition is precise, but it is near enough. The idea is there. One who is vaporized becomes an unperson. One who commits thoughtcrime is vaporized. Simple logic, two and two coming together to form four.

Harry was seventeen when he first had the dream, and has dreamed the same thing for almost every night since.

In the dream, there is no Party, no Ministry of Truth, no Oceania. There is only Harry Potter, aged eleven to seventeen, depending on the night, and his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. That world is a place of joy, and, impossibly, of magic.

In that world, Tom Riddle takes another name, swimming red letters that rearrange to form I am Lord Voldemort, and another face which, red-eyed and slit-nosed, looks inhuman enough to be mistaken for that of a snake. The Harry of that world is prophesied to be the nemesis of Tom Riddle-who-is-Lord Voldemort, and acts it. Each night, Harry dreams of a world in which his younger self and adoring friends gallivant off on daring adventures under the care of their mentor, Albus Dumbledore. Harry's dreams are not perfect, and sometimes hold tragedy and sorrow in them, but this only makes them truer to life. What makes them bearable, makes them perfect, is the sense that no matter what that world's Harry does, Tom Riddle will be vanquished, and there will be freedom.

The first time Harry ever had that dream, he woke up with the word Expelliarmus on his lips and a cold sweat settling across his skin. These days, the dream is about the only thing that makes life tolerable. Harry can only hope that he does not talk in his sleep.

Expelliarmus, then, that wonderfully nonsensical amalgamation of syllables, encompassed Harry's thoughtcrime. From the moment his lips, in a state of half consciousness, had moved to silently form that single word, Harry's future had been lost to him. Since that one word, he had been living on borrowed time. Harry should like to add that word to the Newspeak dictionary. Expelliarmus, that which makes one an unperson.

The very existence of the word unperson threatens the foundation of the Party's mindset, as it implies there ever was a person to be forgotten. Harry does not doubt that, by the time of the release of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak dictionary, the word unperson will have been erased from speech, as if it had never been.

By the time of the release of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak dictionary, Harry himself will likely be just as thoroughly erased.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where Harry verges most from his canon characterization, I think. However, as this divergence happens for reasons already explored in this story, I hope no one minds terribly. Enjoy.

Each morning, Harry wakes and stretches with the twenty to twenty-five age group, led by a light haired woman who, lithe and slim at the waist and barely twenty herself, always bears a red sash around her waist and a smile even as she barks out instructions. (8039 Potter H., that is precisely what I'm talking about! Comrades, please endeavor to be as flexible as Comrade Potter as we bend-two-three and up-two-three, bend...)

Then the stretches are over, and Harry walks to work just like everyone else. (Good morning, Comrade, heard there's been an increase in chocolate rations today.) He always passes the same set of blue uniformed workers, and even after seven years, he still can't remember any of them by name. He greets them politely and moves along. Harry thinks that if the Thought Police really are hidden all throughout the people, these are the sort of facades they would hide themselves behind; well known faces that no one can quite put a name to, that can go anywhere without much comment at all. Perhaps he is merely paranoid.

Then, each day, there is always work. Harry is, consistently, of mixed opinions about his work. There is always a sort of thrill in erasing the past, a surge of power Harry has come to know and appreciate, but he is careful not to let it become addictive because such a thing would not be tolerated. There are three acceptable addictions to have, where the Party is concerned—addiction to liquor, which is unlikely given the state of Victory Gin, addiction to tobacco, which Harry has never indulged himself in, and addiction to Tom Riddle and the Party itself. Becoming addicted to power is one of the most rapid ways to get oneself killed. Harry may have no illusions about his longevity, but he also values his life enough to not want it cut any shorter. Still, some little part of Harry watches pieces of paper flutter down the memory hole by his workstation and can never help but realize that he, Harry, has caused change in some way. This change may not be beneficial to him, but neither is it harmful. In those moments, the deliberately unremarkable Comrade Potter has caused some small impact on the world around him.

There are also, though, those aspects of Harry's job which he finds less tolerable. The hours of boring, repetitive tasks, in which Harry becomes sick of Newspeak and rations going one way or another and unperson so-and-so being replaced with Comrade so-and-so, who will probably be an unperson himself within the year. Worse, though, is Harry's knowledge that these vaporized persons he so neatly cut-and-pastes out of history were once just like him: guilty of thoughtcrime, waking up in the night with a start from time to time in case this happened to be the night the Thought Police come for them. Harry wonders who will have the job of pasting out his face and name from records, once he is gone in his turn. Harry is not yet twenty-five. Resigning himself to the inevitability of his own death is, at times, difficult.

Predictably, Harry's day is always interrupted by the Two Minutes Hate. This ought to be a welcome interruption. More often than not, it confuses Harry all the worse. Without fail, Harry and the rest of the Party members gather around a telescreen and watch, first in mute horror and then in rising boisterous agitation, as the worst enemy of the Party is shown, face projected to huge proportions so as to be almost comically swelled and misshapen. Harry always thinks, at the beginning of the Hate, that the face is nearly kind. It is marked by a white beard and hair of the same color, both far too long to fit the Party norm, pale skin, half-moon spectacles and blue eyes which always dart nervously about as the enemy begins to speak. Harry thinks that these eyes are of the sort that ought to twinkle rather than fret about. He always looks at the harried, grandfatherly man on the screens and thinks, I can not hate this man.

By the end of the two minutes, he always does. This is inescapable. It is one thing to stand amongst the crowd, to hear them rise in screams and cries of hatred wrought from the depths of their very souls, and think, I will not be one of them. It is an entirely different thing to actually do so. By the end of the two minutes, he too is always standing, back arched with fear and bone-biting anger, his throat near to aching as his hoarse voice screams out with the rest, “DOWN WITH ALBUS DUMBLEDORE!” Never once has he needed the reminder that the telescreens are watching and this is what is expected of him; for those few minutes each day, the emotion is always genuine. When Tom Riddle's sharp, beautiful face fills the screen instead, and the war images in the background disappear at last, Harry feels the same piercing relief and gratitude he is sure the rest must also be feeling in that instant. Once Harry thinks he might have cried at the joy of it.

It is only after the screaming mob dissipates that Harry finds himself returning to reality as well as his workstation. The hatred lingers long after the two minutes end, but little by little drops of memory sink back in. He remembers that Albus Dumbledore, enemy of Tom Riddle and the Party, creator of the elusive Brotherhood of the Phoenix, is the enemy of one who will order his death in the dark of the night. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. More than that, he remembers dreams. He remembers memories that never existed, of a world where Albus Dumbledore, dressed in extravagant robes with properly twinkling eyes, perched on his bed at the end of first year and told him that all would be well, that the stone was safe. He remembers Albus Dumbledore giving tacit permission for the highly illegal rescue of his highly imaginary godfather. He remembers all this, and loves the man fiercely for it, all this in the moments before Harry reminds himself that no such world ever existed, that no such things ever occurred. He hates Dumbledore because he is an enemy of the Party, and loves Dumbledore because he is Harry's ally and an enemy of Voldemort. He loves Dumbledore for being his guardian throughout so many of his dreams, and hates Dumbledore because the man never really did sit on the edge of a hospital bed and watch him recover. He loves one Dumbledore that exists only in his imagination, and hates another who may exist solely in propaganda. Albus Dumbledore is Harry's only hope. He hates and loves the man for that alone. Above all this he hates the Party fiercely, without explanation or logic or argument, more than he ever could or would hate Dumbledore.

In the midst of this fervor of contradicting emotions, Harry finds himself thrown daily back into his work, with the telescreens watching on. This is the single most challenging experience of Harry's life, and he experiences it daily. How does one sort out violent rage and all-consuming love so very entangled as all that without once showing a change of expression or twitch which might reveal one's thoughts? Thus far, evidently, Harry has been successful. At least, the Thought Police have not come for him yet.

After lunch, which is sometimes remarkable and sometimes utterly ordinary, there is yet more work. Requesting such-and-such a paper's back edition of July 1976, page three—but all this translated constantly from one language to another, Standard English to Newspeak and back again in moments. The languages of Eurasia and Eastasia, which Harry has heard occasionally in war films and the like, remain completely incomprehensible to him, but over these two languages Harry has a mastery. So the day goes. Dial here and enunciate clearly into the speakwrite there before pressing the slot of the memory hole open and watching a paper flutter down into the depths before the flame takes it, and then repeat on an infinite, unchanging loop.

Work ends in the late afternoon, or perhaps the early evening, as Harry has never really understood the difference. Apart from the daily requirement of one hour spent in the community center, the hours available to Harry then are, theoretically, free time. Harry, though he is many things, is not an idiot. Free time translates best to time in which one might freely help the Party in any way they choose. Expelliarmus and all that his dreams entail mean that Harry is guilty of thoughtcrime. Harry being guilty of such means that, if the Thought Police ever once look in his direction, he will be vaporized, erased completely from existence. The Thought Police are less inclined to look at the good Party members, who march in parades and wave banners and organize meetings for the Junior Anti-Sex League (Male Division) and the Sports Committee. This basic logic means that Harry does all these things, and more when he can. Harry is a Party enthusiast simply because being anything else will have him killed.

At the end of it all, this means that the only moments Harry truly has to himself are those he spends alone in bed, after the lights are out in Oceania Mansion. Even then, he can not forget the telescreen present in his bedroom, even though he dims the sound each night before he sleeps—always there is that undercurrent of noise, as though all the announcements of the Party and motivational speeches have blended together into one dull hum that seems always to say the same thing. TOM RIDDLE IS WATCHING YOU. But, alone in what little dark the constant light of the telescreen and the flashes of bombs going off in the distance allows him, Harry finally has a moment or two each night in which he can break free of his Party persona.

He thinks of freedom frequently in these moments. Harry has never known freedom. If the books of the Party are to be believed, no one before Harry has ever experienced freedom either, with the domineering capitalists in complete control of life and the lower classes living in utter poverty before the Party's takeover. Harry isn't sure what to think of this. He has no memory of what existed before the Party, and thus could never absolutely say that there was or wasn't such a thing as a capitalist to begin with. What he does know is that, for all the Party talks of improvements, the suffering the lower classes endure now can not be so very different from whatever suffering the capitalists might have thought to inflict on them. Harry lives each day in the absolute routine that the Party inflicts on its members, each day almost exactly the same as the last. He knows this is not freedom.

In a world without Tom Riddle, Harry likes to think he would never observe a schedule. He would never rise or sleep at the same time from night to night and day to day, nor eat the same meals two days in a row, nor do the same thing day in and out. What Harry would do is uncertain even to him, but that is beyond the point. He shuts his eyes each night with images of freedom, that ever shifting creature, playing across his eyelids before he sinks into sleep.

…

Harry often eats lunch with Comrade Longbottom and Comrade Finnegan. Neither of the two are particularly interesting. Comrade Longbottom is well meaning but clumsy; Longbottom seems to try to make up for this by cultivating his love of Tom Riddle and the Party into the realm of obsession. Harry speaks civilly with him on a regular basis because Comrade Longbottom is the sort of person Comrade Potter is expected to be seen with, and he honestly thinks that, in some other world, Longbottom might have been a decent enough fellow. In this world, Harry can hardly stand the man. His other lunch companion, Comrade Finnegan, used to be a more interesting person. Harry is not certain what changed the man. He believes that one of Comrade Finnegan's closest friends might have recently been vaporized, but can not ask: to ask acknowledges the fact that they ever existed at all, and that in and of itself is thoughtcrime. These two often make the lunch break a dull, menial time. Harry tends to eat in a carefully timed manner, so that each time a question might be asked of him he happens to have food in his mouth, and thus has a polite excuse to avoid conversation lodged between his molars.

To pass the time, Harry sometimes watches others in the room as they eat their own lunches. He never looks too long at any one person, lest one of those who watch through the telescreen notice and guess at the existence of alliances which might later harm Harry. For instance, one of his favorite people to watch, a thirty-something man with a peculiar looking vein in his ankle whose name Harry never caught, has recently stopped coming to the cafeteria entirely. This is a pity; it almost certainly means the man was recently vaporized. If Harry was seen looking at this man for too long, Harry might have been vaporized along with him. It is safer to look at many people for short bursts of time than to risk the formation of a friendship, or the assumption of such a formation.

One of Harry's favorite people to watch is one Comrade Lovegood. She is a blonde woman with large, cloudy eyes that always seem to be looking off into the distance. More interestingly, her name is nearly a mismatched form of a Newspeak word in and of itself. She is fortunate, Harry often thinks, that she so closely matches the expected image of a Party member, being young, blonde, and relatively fit. Without that image on her side, he thinks she would have long since been vaporized.

One day, when Longbottom is being particularly verbal and Finnegan particularly glum, Harry looks to Comrade Lovegood, who is sitting at a table with Hermione and a dark haired Party member Harry has never seen before. The cafeteria's telescreens are presently babbling on about a victory against Eurasia, and so talk has turned entirely to the war.

The blonde woman, who is drinking a glass of Victory Gin just the same as everyone else in the cafeteria, lifts her glass in cheers along with the rest of her table, and drinks deeply of the repulsive drink. The grimace that comes next, though not advisable, is excusable given the content of the alcohol. What fascinates Harry and damns Comrade Lovegood is what occurs next. As Comrade Lovegood sets down her drink, she says softly, as though quoting something largely forgotten, “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

Harry hears it. From Hermione's posture, she hears it as well. This means the telescreen hears it. Lovegood does not even seem to notice.

For a moment, Harry's eyes meet Hermione's, and it is as if they really are in the world of Harry's dreams, where they have been best friends for years and understand each other perfectly. How could she? Harry thinks this and knows Hermione thinks it too. Comrade Lovegood seems so soft, as if she is a child to be protected rather than an adult. It is entirely possible that she knew that one sentence could be construed as thoughtcrime, and said it anyway. In that case, how could she? What impossible bravery, or stupidity, would drive a person to reveal themselves so? Then, too, it is possible that she spoke without the slightest concept of what she would inflict upon herself. But, then, how could she truly not know?

The moment passes, and Harry looks away and engages Longbottom in a tribulation to Tom Riddle for Oceania's victory in Eurasia. He does not see what Hermione does. He does not dare look at Comrade Lovegood again.

Tonight, he thinks, and then sees in his mind the gentle Comrade Lovegood floating through the halls of the Ministry of Love with clouded, far-away eyes and scars across her face. They torture you before they kill you in the Ministry of Love, as everyone knows. They always kill you with a shot to the back of the neck. They will come for her tonight, he thinks.

Such a pity. He will have to find someone new to watch.

…

And what a someone he finds.

Harry, sitting in his bed with his eyes already shut but sleep miles away, can not think straight. He knows this is stupid. His heartbeat is slow in his chest, but he remembers the feel of it pulsing away in his chest earlier, racing so loudly that he feared the workers in the stalls next to his might hear it. Something indefinable has changed, and Harry can't begin to explain why. He doesn't even think he wants to.

It started earlier that day, when Harry came in to work and, for the first time in six years, did not pass Comrade Lovegood on the way to his desk. This wasn't surprising, any more than the little burst of sympathy in him was. The blonde woman had been part of his nightly dreams for a few years now, almost always peripherally, but that did not change the fact that in his sleep they had been friends of a sort. Comrade Lovegood, who his dreaming self had better known as Luna, had been cryptic and mysterious and occasionally frighteningly insightful. He thinks friendship with her might have been this way in real life, if he had ever gathered up the courage to talk to her in waking hours. He was entitled to mourn her if he liked, as long as he did so silently.

More to the point, though, was that the Party had done as they always did—namely, filled in the gap left behind so quickly that one might never notice the gap left at all. As of that morning, there had never been a Comrade Lovegood. Her old workstation, three cubicles right and two up from Harry's, now belonged to some other Party member, and, moreover, it had always belonged to that Party member. Harry passed it on the way to his desk and did not blink, or grimace, or flick his eyes over to see who had filled her position. Luna, he thought but did not say, and continued walking. It was all he could do in memory of a woman he'd never spoken to.

Nothing terribly exceptional had occurred that morning. Harry worked, loved and hated equally in a confused morass of emotions which, for at least another day, remained unnoticed, and then worked again. He was not given the job of erasing Comrade Lovegood from history, though he did not doubt that some other soul, possibly one sitting in a workspace next to or parallel to his, had been appointed that very same task. As always, Harry found himself watching as fire consumed paper in the memory hole with something very like hunger, though he hid that from the telescreens and was careful to work around it even in his own mind. Always there was that quicksilver exchange of thoughts between one language and another, as Harry found the workings of his own mind shifting to function in Newspeak when he demanded it of them, sometimes in the middle of a sentence or phrase with no noticeable pause. Then it was time for lunch. Harry entertained himself, as he left his cubicle and began to walk towards the cafeteria, by imagining what combination of luck and devious planning could ever come together to render Longbottom, even for the period of one day's lunch, mute. Abruptly, in the midst of turning one possibility around in his mind and examining it for flaws, Harry heard something which quite firmly tugged him back to reality.

He noted, distantly, that he was just passing what had once been Comrade Lovegood's cubicle. Harry also noticed, with the same distracted air, that the voice he heard was coming from inside the cubicle. Then, again, his mind felt the need to note that a dark-haired man was clearly still located at the desk within the workspace and talking into a speakwrite. Thus, logically, the voice that so captivated Harry was coming from the new Party member who had replaced Comrade Lovegood.

Harry noticed all this, and at once paid it no mind. He paid very little mind to much of anything in those moments. He had very little mind left to allocate, truth be told. It was as though each and every part of his mind, including the parts he had carefully trained to function independently of the rest, paused as one in their uses and attached themselves to the sound of that voice. Later, this would irritate Harry. At that moment, he could only appreciate that voice for precisely what it was.

The voice was sinuous, chilled and uninviting and sharper than Harry's most recent stockpiled razor blade. It was like—like—Harry fumbled for the word, knowing there was a simile on the tip of his mental tongue which would never see completion. He saw in his mind's eye, but could not name, a black rippling cloth which was so very smooth it nearly shone, and which moved like water. The voice was like this cloth, but smoother still, and inextricably beautiful in that it offered no welcome for Harry. Harry heard the voice, let it wash over him, and was glad for the biting chill of it, because surely no one could use that voice for work they truly enjoyed. In that moment, he had never been more certain in his life that one man, one stranger speaking in a cubicle as he looked on, was very much his ally, and hated Tom Riddle equally as fiercely as he himself did. He also wondered, idly and nonsensically, what that voice would sound like raised in song.

This thought jarred him. Whatever hold the voice had had over him, it stopped then, though the voice still lapped at his ears and tempted him to actions he could not name, and would not acknowledge. He realized then that, somehow, he had been so very captured by the sound of that voice effortlessly dictating the darting Standard English-Newspeak-Standard English that their job required that he had somehow stopped entirely in his walking. Stopped. For a period which might have been a few seconds or might have been minutes, Harry had stopped and visibly listened to the sound of another human being's voice with something like rapture. And if it had been visible?

Harry did not pale, by a sheer act of will. He did not attempt to justify his stillness by stooping to his shoes or stretching his body. He simply began moving again just as he had stopped, rejoining the throng heading towards the cafeteria. He did not look at the man inside the cubicle, though he wanted to. In those moments he wanted to see the man's face more than he had ever wanted to see anyone before. To walk away pained him, as though he had just discovered some intrinsic right of his body which he had never noticed before, and had to take it away from himself in the same instant. Harry wanted to see what form could produce such a voice. Instead he walked away. In another world, perhaps he might not have done so. TOM RIDDLE IS WATCHING YOU, a poster proclaimed at him from the corner of his eye. He was glad, for the first time, of the reminder.

Harry spent lunch half-heartedly chatting with Longbottom, all the while chiding himself for his mistake. Certainly, to show visible pause had been a mistake. Harry could only hope it had gone unnoticed. That being highly unlikely, he hoped it would not be a fatal mistake. Do not look at me, he wanted to say, but that would be counterproductive and stupid. Instead his mouth rattled on about the recent increase in chocolate rations and the latest war victory, as Longbottom happily stirred himself into a fervor. He spent lunch, too, pointedly not looking for the dark-haired owner of the voice.

Harry would not have seen the man at all that day, if not for happy coincidence. Harry, certainly, would not have taken the risk and sought the man out, or even passed by that cubicle again. Perhaps in another month he would have dared, just to listen to that voice again and catch a glimpse of the dark-haired man, but not this day. The thought of waiting so long hurt him more than it had any right to, but Harry had existed for years since Expelliarmus through the careful examination of situations and the risks they presented. To see the man was tempting, but stupid. Harry could resist temptation, but could not abide stupidity.

As it was, though, Harry did not have to do any of the work himself. As he walked out of the Ministry of Truth, flanked by Hermione, with whom he was making both polite and cautiously disinterested conversation, he once again heard the voice. Harry knew in that moment that he could recognize the voice anywhere, and the black fabric rippled again in his mind, and he fought back a shiver. He blessed and cursed his luck at once. This time, he continued in his conversation with Hermione and did not stop and lose himself in the voice despite the fact that he would like to do otherwise.

When he and Hermione made the turn towards Oceania Mansion, the owner of the voice continued ahead without turning. For just a second, without contorting his body visibly or acting conspicuously, Harry was able to tilt his head just so and see the man's profile. Harry had spent years honing his senses so that he was capable of taking such a second's image and extracting every possible detail from it. As the moment ended and he began to turn away to catalog, he was extremely glad of that.

The man was dark-haired, but not a brunet as he had thought at first glance, nor even with a dark brown shade like Harry's own which tended to look black in most lights—the man, unlike Harry, had hair which could be called nothing other than black, and Harry thought it might be an affront to title such a pure shade something so muddled as brown. That said, the man's hair was beautiful only in color. The texture of it was coarse, and it shone with oil at the roots, as though the man had run out of good soap and grown into the habit of washing it with only water. This was a shame, as Harry thought that color of hair deserved beauty, and could easily recommend one out of the way Prole store which sold soap of fairly decent quality on a regular basis. The man wore his hair long by Party norm, so that it fell nearly to the lobes of his ears. He seemed the sort of man who might prefer his hair to be even longer, but Harry was glad of the enforced range of acceptable hair lengths. He had a feeling that, if allowed to grow long, that hair might become lank and even more oily.

Harry noticed too, but paid less attention to, the color of the man's skin. It was, of course, white; Harry had seen very few in Oceania with skin of any other color, and those he had seen in passing had rapidly disappeared at some later point, leaving not even a gap behind. Such was the way of things. Still, to Harry's eye, the man's skin seemed even paler than was usual, as though he saw less of sunlight than most. The contrast with the black of his hair was striking, and not unappealing.

The man had a strong nose, which was perhaps overlarge and more than a little crooked, as though it had been broken and never quite repaired. Harry did not mind this. The man's lips, also, seemed thinner than the norm, and, though they were set in the neutral expression expected of all Party members, there was a quirk to the very edge of those lips, as though the man wanted to scowl at everything around him and, being unable to, settled for inflicting the impression of lopsidedness upon all those he met. Harry thought he could appreciate those lips. They might even be beautiful, if the man was allowed to sneer as he seemed to so desperately want to, and then, having got the impulse out of his system, bothered to smile.

The man was also very tall, and dressed in the usual blue overalls of the Party member. A black uniform, such as that of the Inner Party, would likely suit the man better. The blue seemed to try to soften the man, resulting in a clash of intentions which left a sharp man dressed in clothes which seemed almost laughably informal on him.

All this Harry noticed, even as he turned away from the man and continued his conversation with Hermione.

Just as Harry was finishing the last degree of his turn, however, just as he entered the last possible angle in which he could see the man easily, the man seemed to notice he was being watched. With the same sort of motion Harry was making, the man swept his eyes to the side, searching for whoever might be watching. For just a second, the man's eyes met Harry's, and they were cold and sharp and piercing and dark as the man's voice and the cloth rippled behind Harry's eyes, and Harry thought, I am in love.

Then the man's companion, a brown-haired man of no real distinction in Harry's mind, called the man's attention back with the sentence, “Comrade Snape, are you listening to me?” Harry completed his turn away. The moment passed but was not forgotten.

Harry listened to that voice make apologies behind him, and fought shock. There were precisely three things wrong with this. One, the man—Comrade Snape, his mind supplied rebelliously—was a man. Harry had never heard of love between two men. He would have said, before that instant, that no such thing existed. Harry's feelings, however, were incontrovertible. Love was to be saved for when two people understood each other, knew each other intimately down to details of the past, and found their personalities well suited to each other—Harry knew this but could not explain when or how it had ever been told to him, only knew that at some point in the past someone had told him as much. He presumed it had been his mother. So, perhaps Harry did not love this man he did not know, but he was at least quite solidly in love with him. He was in love with the man's body, his voice, and those few glimmers of soul he thought he might have caught through some twist of luck, and maybe he could someday know the man well enough to truly love him. That, then, was the truth of things, and it ceased to bother Harry as soon as he accepted it. He had never been attracted to women, and now he was in love with a man. So be it.

Secondly, the man—Comrade Snape, the rebellious tone supplied again—was much older than Harry's twenty-three. His hair was not yet grey, nor was his face especially lined, but there was a weariness in his eyes that only time could bring. Harry, who was not skilled at guessing ages, would best place the man to be near forty, perhaps a little older or younger. The age gap in and of itself would mean nothing to Harry, were it not for the fact that, being forty, the man was likely already married with children. This was expected of any Party member of that age. That Harry himself had gone unmarried for twenty-three years was a scandal in and of itself. Would the man love his wife? Would the man love his inevitably brainwashed children?

Thirdly, lastly, and most importantly, was the fact that this was a risk. Love was thoughtcrime, Harry had long known that. He did not yet feel love, but he doubted the Party would make that distinction. Even to be in love was thoughtcrime, he now realized. He cared more for one man than he did for the Party, and this without the jumble of confused feelings that Albus Dumbledore inspired or the lingering feeling of cowardice and guilt he felt when associating with Hermione or Weasley. Harry's continued survival, he knew well, depended on his ability to keep his head below the radar, to go unnoticed, to go unseen by appearing entirely normal. Being in love with a man was hardly Party norm, and this sudden desire of Harry's to turn about, extend his arms and call out to Comrade Snape would bring notice upon him which Harry could not afford. The dreams were a risk, a very major and potentially fatal risk. He could not afford another.

That did not stop the frantic beating of Harry's heart as he and Hermione continued on towards Oceania Mansion. I am in love, he thought again. I am in love. It became a mantra, throbbing alongside his heartbeat, over and over. Harry had known unconditional love in his youth but never understood it. He thought he could now, at least a little. I am in love.

He lies now in his bed in the dark, with those same four words dancing through his mind. I am in love, he thinks again, and the darkness looks like the length of black cloth Comrade Snape's voice calls to mind. He half expects the Thought Police to come in the night. Surely they will. Expelliarmus and now the beginnings of love—Harry is chest-deep in thoughtcrime by this moment. Surely they will see and come for Harry, because he is a thought criminal twice over and he can't imagine what finesse will be required of him as he seeks to keep that secret. They will come in the night, they must, because Harry is intelligent enough to know that his odds have fallen even lower, that his borrowed time must be ticking away so very much more quickly now. Surely they will come tonight. I am in love, he thinks, and then thinks that if the Thought Police barged in at this very moment he might summon up a smile with which to greet them. This, they can not take from him. The dreams could be suppressed by drugs easily, or by torture with more difficulty, and he knows he will lose the dreams by the end. This is his, this feeling is his, and they can not take it from him.

He sleeps well that night, and wakes in the morning in his own bed. The Thought Police, then, have not found him yet.

Harry will have to be so cautious, so very careful, more so than he ever has been before. He gets out of bed and plans. To see the man is a risk, but also a bodily need, and so Harry plans around it. He plans damage control for worst case scenarios. He plans meetings, erases from his mind those which seem less than accidental. He makes rules for how long he is allowed to look deliberately at Comrade Snape per month, how many times he is allowed to listen to the man's voice. This, at least, is one thing Harry does better than the other self he becomes in his dreams. Harry is less courageous in this life, less daring. He could never rally an army or fight a war, like his dreaming counterpart does. But Harry can plan, and so he does. All the while he dresses, shaves, stands before the telescreen with the twenty to twenty five group. Harry is used to functioning on a single imperative—no matter what he thinks or feels at any given moment, he must always go unseen. Simply because a second imperative, that of being near Comrade Snape, has entered his mind, does not mean the first imperative will fail suddenly.

I am in love, he thinks.

He stretches to touch his toes.


End file.
